the pet radish, shrunken

by Pearl Pirie

In this post-lyrical era, poems can be stories, or they can just as easily be exuberant laughter set to words, an experiment in language, or an incidental collation of plays on a Scrabble board.

the pet radish, shrunken, the third full collection of poetry from the inimitable Pearl Pirie, deals in the poetics of sound, language, and play. In true Pirie style, this fresh, quirky, and clear-seeing collection speaks in a range of styles and voices: From a military convoy of turtles, to a Kafkaesque conversation with a houseful, to the dissection of a fruit machine, Pirie offers oulipo found speech as it integrates and disintegrates, plays with and tumbles through language.

Earning comparisons to Jenny Sampirisi's Croak and Leigh Kostilidis's Hypotheticals for their shared sense of linguistic playfulness and curiosity, the pet radish, shrunken will appeal to exploring minds who are ready to question language, society, and self while not minding a taint of grief and comedy that necessarily creeps in around the edges.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published March 5, 2015

About the author

Fourth Collection footlights (Radiant Press)

My third collection, the pet radish, shrunken (book*hug, 2015) won the Lampman Award.

author site:
www.pearlpirie.com

I'm most active on twitter as pesbo.
See also patreon.com/pearlpiriepoet
and instagram.com/PearlPiriePoet

on vimeo: https://vimeo.com/29603462
a 2012 reading from Thirsts, been shed bore and Mammals of Hoarfrost at Poets Live in Paris. Fellow readers with Peter Hughes and Bonny Finberg.

Reviews

[Vicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each poem in this cleverly crafted collection seems to be the product of impishly wielded Scrabble tiles, intimately deployed with often revelatory results. Pirie's collection is a charming puzzle, a delight and a balm to heart and soul.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

With The Pet Radish, Shrunken, Pearl Pirie "reaches for a ripe tomato and sinks thru into a poem"; she "conjugates herself into hums that become harmony-hands as they rub, spin". She accomplishes all of this with her playful style and sense of humour...

you fail-lion, tilde axing brunt boy.
you turbo fungal koan douser
vetch pitching dumbdinger
decal dowager, runt town dojo
you, wimple zinger, listen up
because I love you. if I didn't, think
about it, why would I be yelling?
- each sub-clause of the riot act memorized, pg. 11

*

to a rope to a car in the driveway is my hiccup.
parked, & parked & parked in the diagonal
snow, hiccuping & hip-downing, it sits, hics.
- tied, pg. 27

*

(s)lapped by waves, & for(got)ten
let us turn towards the g(o)od
car(v)e into (s)tone those things
that make us knock out the (s)hard
from the shoe, & be (d)one with this
not memor(ial)ize it. let us (o)pen
a mode(l)s of well & (forth) right
(sp)urn this (c)rushing onslaught.

laughter is what we're after, patter(n)s
to (transc)end, (em)brace the (brea)
thing. from window sill the sillies(t)
scenes of ow cow cowl owl scowled
a juvenile roosting group of crows
the rows are a threat or a thread of
celebration? raucous as most causes.

the story as given, billy the quid is
liquidity, may be (b)rain (d)riven
(g)raven but all that is in gaze(ttes) is
written in the (h)air, (s)and, water.
we are (f)lux. we (en)lighten us.
b(r)eak from that (c)rock of fossils
as destiny. they confess the past not
rapt future (t)ours. caws & effect.
now you've cawed it, call it. caw.
- alternative responses (f)or irritants, pg. 32

*

the autopilot hello how are
you? how are you? how are. how
existential we become in grief.

how are you falls down, echoes
tailspins miles of air
voicebox to blackbox
explosions contained in throats.

under the rug of utterance
bu before we derail entirely
I want to fill all space, prattle
to the crown molding, my day

displace your day, distract with
my day, displace your display
of now. oh look, the rattle toy
of my day. to stroke away that

wiggly mouth face of

whip-up super high energy
to overcompensate for your
low. my low. we can only
take turns at panicking. this is
the one thing that makes sense.

you're uncharacteristically
quiet. I'll balance us. we'll
average us out to everyone
okay. what did I do? I decided
to fix a shirt by getting a huge
pot & dying.

it was a really

busy week. you wouldn't
believe how hectic, absolute
madhouse. a real kill

er. & we did

some gardening. we took
that spade & dug up.
everything. wobbles wrong.
- how not to have the mouth say, pg. 41-42

*

it's kept as the head of operations
for the methadone gaffe. no one question.

magical thinking bile is required
to med the agate ditz of comfy.

look at that dory, minus the hunky
it's as seaworthy on the tines of gale.

pr is the inevitable start of any time
of prayer. the blitz howl its own oaths.

such putz work avoids the snip snap of soars
of the tachyon pulses of the fatal laws of later.

sidestep the rule of: fresh is best.
much is tucked inside the virulent must.

recall: even the most buxom blues thin, thin out
by dawn. to pray is to flick a spraying fez of gold.

chin up, birth enzymes of a slug's swagger
to shrink the antlers of their onwards despites.
- the pet radish, sunken, pg. 76